Breath limit

[Sky Breaker]

Ok so I’ve been thinking is there a limit on how many breaths a person can hold. Because we see night-blood  who is filled past his limit with breaths and we see him leaking. But what I’m really wondering is how small is too small to put a breath in for example if I had a microscope and touched a dead germ could I make a lifeless or is that too small. Could I just touch an atom and command it to stop moving or is that to small?

[alder24]

8 hours ago, Sky Breaker said:

Ok so I’ve been thinking is there a limit on how many breaths a person can hold. Because we see night-blood  who is filled past his limit with breaths and we see him leaking.

There probably is, but that's a lot of Breaths. HoA spoilers:

Spoiler

The limit would be similar to the amount of investiture that Vin held in the Well or when she took all Mists and Ascended to Preservation - so much investiture that the person Ascend - in case of Breaths this would be very similar to Vin taking the power of Well, without Ascending to Preservation.

Spoiler

Kaimipono

Allomancy is fueled by Preservation's body? How exactly does that work? And how does that interact with Atium—it's fueled by both gods' bodies?

Brandon Sanderson

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

Condensed 'essence' of these godly powers can act as super-fuel for Allomancy, Feruchemy, or really any of the powers. The form of that super fuel is important. In liquid form it's most potent, in gas form it's able to fuel Allomancy as if working as a metal. In physical form it is rigid and does one specific thing. In the case of atium, it allows sight into the future. In the case of concentrated Preservation, it gives one a permanent connection to the mists and the powers of creation. (I.e., it makes them an Allomancer.)

So when a person is burning metals, they aren't using Preservation's body as a fuel so to speak—though they are tapping into the powers of creation just slightly. When Vin burns the mists, however, she'd doing just that—using the essence of Preservation, the Shard of Adonalsium itself—to fuel Allomancy. Doing this, however, rips 'troughs' through her body. It's like forcing far too much pressure through a very small, fragile hose. That much power eventually vaporizes the corporeal host, which is acting as the block and forcing the power into a single type of conduit (Allomancy) and frees it to be more expansive.

Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

 

8 hours ago, Sky Breaker said:

But what I’m really wondering is how small is too small to put a breath in for example if I had a microscope and touched a dead germ could I make a lifeless or is that too small.

No idea, there likely are limits of that:

Spoiler

Jason

Can one give the Command, “divide and do thing X”, for Awakening? How many Breaths would it take to do something like a straw mannequin, how small could you get the pieces, how would you retrieve the Breath?

Brandon Sanderson

I’m afraid I would have to pull out my notes. I mean I wrote that book a few- 2006, and so we’re nine years away from me writing that magic system. I, I have it all in the notes, but I can’t off the top of my head rattle it off for you. People use Awakening so infrequently now in the cosmere, it’s just on the one planet with the occasional worldhopper, that I just go to my notes and get it out when I need it.

Figment chat (Jan. 19, 2015)

 

8 hours ago, Sky Breaker said:

Could I just touch an atom and command it to stop moving or is that to small?

Atom isn't alive, never was. You would have a hard time doing that as you can't touch atoms.

[Quantus he/him]

I dont think there is going to be a limit as in a Cap, so much as a threshold where you'd Ascend as if you had taken in a Shardpool.  The fundamental difference between Breaths and most other forms of magic is that Breaths (used for Heightenings) are directly Investing the Physical Aspect in a way few other magics do (Stormlight absorption being the big one), while most of the rest channel through from something external.  We've seen a whole lot of Investiture go into smaller containers than a human body, so I think that threshold would be huge (much more than the equivalent mass of a godmetal). But at that point I think there's a line where the Nth Heightening is just "Becomes a Sliver of Endowment" similar to when Rashek drank the Well while the two Shards where still around.